Sunday, February 23, 2014

The Republic / The End

While I colored my hair, I finished Plato's Republic, yesterday.  I read all the way to the end and then I read the end back a bunch of pages and then I read it forward again to the end, and I underlined and made some notes in the margins, because it had to do with fate and necessity and choosing, a perennial question with no answer.  We see, with Plato, the gods are not to blame, it is our choosing, and we are supposed to gather up gifts and spoils in the contest of living a good and righteous life.  We chose our life.  Hm.  But we can't remember the choosing.  Hm.

Once it's chosen, it cannot be altered, but we must try and be just. It's seems kind of a round-about-way to take 400 pages to get to that.  "Be just."  "Be good."

Goethe said:  "Edel sei der Mensch, hilfreich, und gut."  --  "Let a man or woman be noble, helpful, and good."  Ah, yes.  Indeed.

It had struck me, that throughout the whole book I had underlined nothing at all, up till now.  I am thinking about why that is.

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